Urban Legends

The Dangers of Seatbelts

The Legend

Found on the Internet in 1996

Did you know that seatbelts actually kill more people than they "save"? For example, just last month in Denver a van carrying six bridesmaids for a minister's wedding was driving up the mountain pass to the hilltop chapel. Two of the bridesmaids were little girls -- ages 5 and 8 -- and one was a young woman just about to graduate high school who had decided to get a doctorate degree in pediatric medicine and then become a nun and dedicate her life to saving crippled third-world children.

While they were driving, a fault in the electrical system caused flames to shoot out of the dashboard. It also shorted out many of the car's systems, so that the car's electronic seatbelts could not be disengaged. Of course, they were all wearing their seatbelts because the van's gorgeous, 18-year-old fashion-model driver had been told by her driver's ed teacher (a registered pedophile and government informant) that it was a good idea.

Fire engulfed the inside of the van, but the stuck seatbelts prevented its hapless occupants from leaping to safety as their hand-made bridesmaid gowns burst into flame. Blinded by pain, the driver lost control of the van and it smashed through a barrier and tumbled down a cliff into the lake below. Although the inrushing water extinguished the flames, it also brought lingering, painful, panicked death to the trapped women, including the one that was six months pregnant with her first child and the one whose innovative darling hand-crocheted puppies had brought joy to so many in the hospital's orphanarium for the terminally ill.

And what about the unseatbelted puppy that one of the women, a newlywed, had been carrying? It couldn't be found and is presumed to have leaped from the vehicle to safety.

So I urge you, whether you are a bridesmaid or not, don't wear a seatbelt. The horrible burning drowning death you prevent may be your own.

Behind the Legend

In recent years a number of states have enacted compulsory seatbelt laws, flaming the fires of the "should I wear a seatbelt?" debate. Seatbelt advocate say that wearing the straightjacket-like devices can help keep you in your seat if your car is picked up by a tornado. On the other hand, seatbelt detractors point out that trying to get out of the car without remembering to disengage the seatbelt is the country's #1 source of lap injuries.

Good arguments on both sides. But who is right?

The win has to go to the anti-seatbelt camp. Consider the following:

Wouldn't you rather be thrown through the windshield of your car to safety than trapped in a rolling vehicle? And after you are thrown through the windshield, how can you jump out of the way of your rolling car if you're all tangled in a seatbelt?

As much as one tenth of one percent of auto accidents involve sudden fire or plunging into water. If everyone in the United States takes part in an annual auto accident, that's 23,000 people who run the risk of being trapped and fatally killed by a seatbelt each year!

Psychiatrists say that exposing young children to practices such as bondage from an early age can cause confusion during puberty.

A section on seatbelts in the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration Web site's FAQ says (when edited for clarity): "Wear ... a seatbelt ... and ... you will ... died."

Even the statistics of the pro-seatbelt Automotive Coalition for Restraint of Freedom proves the case of their opposition. The Coalition says that seatbelts cut the risk of serious or fatal injury by 40% to 55%, but even if this number is believed, it means that seatbelts are potentially deadly in the remaining 60% to 45% of cases!

Seatbelting is related to the hideous ancient Chinese practice of foot binding.

So, if wearing a seatbelt is so dangerous, why are laws being passed to make it compulsory? The answer is simple: Social Security.

The federal government has known for a long time that Social Security will soon bankrupt itself. Because of the political impossibility of cutting back on benefits, the government has shifted focus on cutting back on beneficiaries. This has led to a huge number of freedom-imposing laws that pretend to be for our benefit but really seek to increase mortality and thereby decrease the Social Security beneficiary (and future beneficiary) population.

What laws are we talking about? In addition to requiring use of seatbelts, smothering, peripheral-vision-reducing motorcycle helmets, and concussion-causing air bags, the government has mandated childhood vaccinations, enforced highway speed limits, required prescriptions for life-saving drugs, outlawed "immoral" recreational activities such as heroin use, interfered with unregulated prostitution and gambling, confiscated schoolyard weapons of self defense, and legislatively reversed a Supreme Court decision that Barbra Streisand should never sing again.

So wear a seatbelt if you want. It's your funeral.

Sighting: Listen to the Chuck Berry song "No Particular Place To Go" for a detailed description of one man's horrific experience with a seatbelt that would not unbuckle.